A number of factors affect how much you will receive if a vehicle insured on your Motor Trade policy is written off.

If you are involved in an accident, whether it was your fault or the fault of one of the drivers on the policy, or not, the amount you get paid may depend upon a number of different things, including who was the owner of the vehicle, and what level of indemnitycover you have on your Motor Trade Insurance policy.

If the vehicle is one of your own personal vehicles, you will be paid out the Trade value on the vehicle, within your Indemnity limit. So for example, if the Trade value of your vehicle is £9,000, and your Indemnity limit is £10,000, then you would receive £9,000, minus the policy Excess for you own personal vehicles; If the Trade value of your vehicle is £12,000 and your Indemnity limit is £10,000, then you would only receive £10,000 minus the policy Excess.

If the vehicle you have an accident in belongs to a customer, and it is subsequently written-off, then you will be paid out the appropriate Retail value of the vehicle, up to your Indemnity limit. So for example, if the Retail value of your customer’s vehicle is £9,000 and your Indemnity limit is £10,000, then you would receive £9,000; If the Retail value of your vehicle is £12,000 and your Indemnity limit is £10,000, then you would only receive £10,000.

It is possible for you to have split Indemnity on your Motor Trade insurance, meaning you could specify a different level of Indemnity cover for your personal vehicles to the level on your customer’s vehicles. This way, if your personal vehicles were of lower value than the vehicles you worked on for your customers, then you would not be paying for additional cover that you didn’t need on your own vehicles, and could therefore possibly save money (and vice versa if your personal vehicles were of greater value than your customer’s vehicles). This can be be done on any type of Motor Trade policy, whether that's a Tyre Fitters insurance policy or a trade policy suited to vehicle recovery services.

You can also specify different levels of Indemnity for specific types of vehicles, such as sports cars or prestige vehicles that you may come in to custody of, for which you may need a greater level of Indemnity than you would for the other vehicles you work on or own. Remember when ever you get a new vehicle or one leaves your possession you must update the Motor Insurance Database.

For full details of all of the different options available to you, and how you might best structure your Motor Trade insurance Indemnity levels to give you the cover that you need without paying for cover you don’t need, call our specialist team on 0800 221 8077.